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| The school staffing crisis has continued unabated across the nation, with a new normal like a superintendent in Louisiana getting her CDL to fill in for a lack of bus drivers. States are trying different approaches such as temporarily overhauling the licensure requirements for substitute teachers, using a recent influx of federal funding to increase teacher pay, and trying to improve morale with events like a teacher dash-for-cash. The U.S. Secretary of Education has a list of other recommendations, too. Getting less press lately is the fate of early education, which, according to a recent Washington Post article, has “hemorrhaged workers and often can’t afford to increase wages as much as competing employers. Short-staffing in these centers and in public schools has the potential to ripple out through the economy as disruptions to child care cause parents to miss work or drop out of the labor force.” However, the situation in Vermont seems to be trending in the opposite direction with a constricting job market. Despite staffing challenges that have been reported previously in the 802 Ed Newsletter and recently prompted a plea to the public from a high-profile educational leader, and against a backdrop of increased student behavior issues, the number of job openings has recently been decreasing at a rate of more than 7 openings per day over the past three weeks. In particular, the number of openings for teachers has dropped by 37% and the number of openings for substitutes has swung down by 28%, when compared across the past three weeks. The chart below tracks the total number of posted position openings for the three weeks previous to the publication of this newsletter, presented as data points and a linear trend line. (Data from SchoolSpring) Republished from Jan. 3, 2022 802 Ed Newsletter |
Categories: Education
God bless our teachers. They do some of the hardest work in our country.